It is necessary to ventilate buildings, both residential and commercial buildings, to the outside ambient environment. In residential buildings for instance, it may be necessary to ventilate rooms, such as bathrooms to the outside ambient environment, by way of a fan located in the bathroom, which fan exhausts air to the exterior of the building. It is also necessary to vent certain appliances, such as stoves and clothes dryers to the ambient environment. Again, in the case of a stove vent, an exhaust fan is used to exhaust air to the outside. In the case of a clothes dryer, the dryer itself exhausts air to the outside, but may be augmented by an additional exhaust fan.
In industrial buildings, it is also necessary to ventilate rooms such as washrooms, paint rooms and the like, automobile maintenance garages, and so on. It is also necessary to ventilate devices such as commercial dryers, various industrial machinery, and the like.
In any event, it is necessary to terminate the ventilation system that passes through a building wall to the ambient environment, at an exhaust box. Such an exhaust box must allow for the passage of a sufficient amount of exhaust air to the ambient environment, with flow rates ranging perhaps as high as several hundred cubic feet per minute. Further, the exhaust box should preclude physical entry into the ventilation system from the ambient environment of the building. In other words, it should stop birds and small animals from seeking shelter in the ventilation system. Still further, the exhaust box should preclude wind, rain, snow and so on from entering the ventilation system, at least as much as reasonably possible.
Exhaust boxes must also properly seal to the building that they are installed in in order to preclude air and water due to rain, cold weather, snow and so on from entering into the building or leaking into the wall that the exhaust box is in, and to preclude heated or air conditioned air from within the building from unwantedly escaping to the ambient environment.
Further, the exhaust damper should itself have sufficient structural integrity so as to not leak, thereby to preclude air or water from entering into the building or leaking into the wall that the exhaust box is in, and to prevent heated or air conditioned air within the building from unwantedly escaping to the ambient environment.
In order to preclude the passage of air and water due to rain, cold weather, snow and so on, into the interior of the building, an openable and closable damper is employed. Typically, such a damper is gravity biased to a closed position and is moved to an open position by the movement of air therethrough from the interior of the building to the exterior of the building. If wind is present at the exterior of the exhaust box, which wind is directed so as to tend to enter the exhaust box, the damper precludes the wind from passing through the exhaust box. However, the wind resultingly tends to shut the damper more tightly, thereby making it difficult for the normal flow of air that would typically vent through the exhaust box from opening the damper, and thus potentially precluding the normal flow of air from being vented to the exterior of the building.
One type of prior art is an exhaust box that is fabricated from sheet metal. These sheet metal boxes are typically fabricated at the time of installation. Thus, there is no proper uniformity of these boxes and the quality of the boxes depends on the skill of the installer and the care that is taken to construct the box. Typically, these sheet metal boxes leak both air and water back into the building and into the wall that the exhaust box is installed in, and also leak heated or air conditioned air from within the building to the ambient environment. Such leaking occurs because the exhaust boxes do not fit properly into the opening in the wall, because there are openings or gaps in the exhaust box due to poor construction, and because the damper does not close tightly. Further, leaking can occur into the wall structure of the building because of a poor fit between the exhaust damper and the wall structure and also because of gaps in the construction of the sheet metal exhaust damper.
Another type of prior art is an exhaust box that is fabricated from plastic and that has a hinged gravity biased damper that is generally open to the outside and an extension portion that is angled downwardly so as to direct the flow of air downwardly to the exterior of the building and to preclude, at least to some degree, air and water from entering into the exhaust box. When the damper is in its opened position, there is a fairly direct pathway from the interior of the building through the exhaust box into the ambient environment, thus making it possible, if not easy, for air and water to enter through the exhaust box and also for small animals or birds to enter into the exhaust box.
Another problem with typical prior art exhaust boxes is that a plurality of exhaust boxes must be fabricated on a custom fit basis. For exhaust boxes to be installed in juxtaposed relation, it would be necessary that they provide a proper seal between adjacent exhaust boxes so as to preclude the passage of air and water therethrough. Such plastic exhaust boxes are typically used in conjunction with drier exhaust outlets.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an exhaust box that properly seals to the building that it is installed in.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an exhaust box that precludes air and water from entering into the walls of the building it is installed in.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an exhaust box that precludes air and water from entering the interior of the building it is installed in.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an exhaust box that are readily joined one to another so as to form multiple outlets, with proper sealing taking place between adjacent joined exhaust boxes.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an exhaust box that exceeds construction standards for air and water leakage.